Let’s get our veggie burger on with these Homemade White Bean Burgers! They’re aways part of our meal prep routine and are freezer-friendly too!
Say hello to my latest veggie burger!
These homemade white bean burgers are full of flavor and freezer-friendly too! So feel some to make some to eat now, and a few to scarf later too!
These vegetarian burgers feature a blend of chickpeas and cannellini beans with a medley of veggies and spices for a crazy tasty veggie burger that’s full of texture and flavor.
tasty toppings for veggie burgers
Choose your favorites from the list below!
- pickled red onion (see below for an easy peasy recipe)
- guacamole
- ketchup +/or mustard (hellooo classic!)
- chipotle honey mustard
- lettuce or slaw
- tomato
- hummus
- thinly sliced jalapeños
- cheese
I topped mine with lettuce, massaged kale and cabbage slaw, and thinly sliced jalapeño along with a drizzle of my favorite homemade cheese sauce in place of the usual slice of cheese. SO GOOD!
Homemade White Bean Burgers
As written the white bean burger patties themselves are vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free.
For a vegan veggie burger, choose the flax egg option as the binder and then choose your favorite vegan toppings for your burger! For gluten-free burgers, use GF certified oats and snag your favorite GF buns or opt for a lettuce wrapped burger with all the fixings – they’re delicious!
Homemade White Bean Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas (15 oz)
- 1 can cannellini beans (15 oz)
- 1 cup finely diced red bell pepper
- 1.5-2 cups finely diced onion
- 1 cup finely diced celery
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 TBSP olive oil (plus extra for pan frying burgers)
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 + ½ cups rolled oats or ground/quick oats (not instant)
- 2 large eggs or flax eggs if vegan
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning blend (I use salt-free Mrs. Dash)
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cumin
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 1/8-1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- crushed red pepper flakes for a spicer patty; add to taste
Instructions
- Drain and rinse beans, then set aside.
- Dice and mince your veggies and garlic. Sauté celery, onion, and red pepper in 3 TBSP of oil. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper, to taste.
- Once the veggies are tender, add garlic sauté until fragrant, approx. 30 seconds.
- Transfer to a large bowl and add the beans, quinoa, spices, and half the oats. To help hold the burgers together, partially mash beans into veggies with a large fork, mashing about 1/2 of the mixture and leaving the rest mostly whole. Partially whisk eggs and mix into the veggie mixture. Lastly keep adding remaining oats until desired texture is reached. The mixture will be a bit sticky, which is what we're going for!
- To make the patties, your veggie mixture into 8 tightly packed balls.
- Cup each in the palm of your hands and squeeze tightly, rotating as you gently but firmly press it into a disc using your thumb. Tightly packing each patty will help them hold together, as will chilling. I like mine on the thiner side so middles cook all the way through, but not so thin that they won't hold their shape.
- Form into 8 patties, place on two parchment paper lined plates (or a baking sheet if you have room) and refrigerate 30 minutes or longer.
- Feel free to prep these overnight, leaving them covered int the fridge to chill. I typically make one burger right away and then leave the remainder in the fridge overnight. The following day I cook up the rest of the burgers and split the batch between the fridge and freezer.
- Ready to eat? Pour a tablespoon or two of oil in a skillet, heat to medium-high, so the burgers sizzle when you add them to the pan. Cook for a few minutes on each side until you're left with a golden crust. and a warm center. Repeat for each burger, or cook two at once if you have a big enough pan! I'd skip crowding all four together just because they're a pain to flip when all up in eachother's business.
- Once they've had a chance to partially freeze you can pile them in baggies or your favorite airtight container. To re-heat frozen veggie burgers, simply pop on a lined baking sheet in the oven or toaster oven for approx. 20 minutes at 400°F. Bake until the outside is crispy and the center is hot.
Notes
Nutrition
freezer instructions
To freeze, simply cook the burgers, allow to cool a bit, and then freeze (spaced) on a plate or cookie sheet.
Once they’ve had a chance to partially freeze you can pile them in baggies or your favorite airtight container. To re-heat frozen veggie burgers, simply pop on a lined baking sheet in the oven or toaster oven for approx. 20 minutes at 400°F. Bake until the outside is crispy and the center is hot.
hungry for more?
Serve your veggie burgers with a side of Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad or Pasta Salad.
I like mine on a bun, fully loaded, but also really enjoy these bean burgers on a loaded lettuce wrap or crumbled on top of a big veggie-filled salad.
If you get a chance to try these homemade white bean burgers, let me know!
Leave some love in the comment form below or tag your photos with @peasandcrayons on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creation. I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
Finally! This is the best veggie I have ever made! I didn’t think they were going to hold together while I was forming them, but once they’re cooked, they hold together beautifully. I got ten burgers out of the recipe and cooked the first two after chilling. I baked the rest at 375° for 30 minutes. I just reheated one in a bit of oil on the stovetop and it tasted just as good! I will probably bake the next batch for 25 minutes, but other than that, I’ll do everything the same. Thank you!
Best veggie burger I’ve had….and I’ve eaten a lot of veggie burgers! I will keep these in my freezer religiously. I read some comments before I started and it seemed some people had trouble getting them to stick together. Mine came out perfect this way: I subbed brown rice for quinoa because I had leftover brown rice to use up from Chinese takeout. It worked great, and honestly I think I’ll continue to use brown rice moving forward. I also didn’t have peppers or celery on hand so I used some celery salt. I’ll definitely use those ingredients next time though. I do feel that the veggies should go through a food processor or chopper to help bind the burgers. I used my immersion blender with the food chopper attachment to grind the oats into an almost flour consistency, mince the veggies together, “mash” the beans and whisk the eggs into them. Everything came together and I had no problems. I ended up refrigerating the formed burgers for a couple hours, and I do think refrigerating is an important step. Afterward I seared them in an oiled skillet until they had nice color on both sides and popped them into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. They were perfect. There were eight 4 oz patties. Thank you so much for a fantastic recipe! I will search for more on your blog!
Thank you Deborah! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the white bean burgers and love that you shared your go-to technique! xoxo
Mine is not holding together
Happy to help troubleshoot! Were any ingredients changed/swapped/omitted at all? Is this before refrigerating the patties or after?
I want to and will try, but I have a question. Can the quinoa be substituted? I don’t really care for it. I was thinking farro or freekah.
Hi Cara! You should be able to substitute it with another grain.
Really loved the taste of these burgers! Trying to trouble shoot, as I had trouble getting them to stick together. Should these be regular rolled oats or should they be ground/in a flour consistency?
Hi Anna! Either option works for these burgers! I usually grind up my oats when I plan on taking pictures of the burgers or serving them to T-rex friends but when I make them myself for meal prep I just plop the whole rolled oats right in there. Happy to help troubleshoot on consistency – did your mixture feel too dry? Did you use eggs or flax eggs as your binder?
Hi Jenn, these look great! Can I use steel cut oats in place of the rolled oats?
Hi Reenie! Steel cut oats unfortunately don’t have the correct texture for veggie burgers as we need them to operate as a binder here. If that’s all you have on hand you could pulse them in a food processor until they resemble an oat flour which would be a great texture to bind the burgers.
Hi Jenn, I would like to try out your recipe. Can you recommend a substitute for the quinoa? I am not a big fan of quinoa so I’d was wondering if another ingredient would work just as well in its place?
Hi Allyson! My Buffalo Chickpea Veggie Burgers are quinoa free and super similar in ingredients to these veggie burgers. For the White Bean Burgers here you could just skip the quinoa entirely and see how the mixture is looking and sprinkle in some extra oats if a little more binder is needed to keep them together. Easy peasy! xo
These white bean burgers were delicious! Thank you! I decided to use brown rice in place of the quinoa and I felt that worked well. I have an electric stove and noticed that veggie burgers remain soft in the center unlike when I’ve made them using a gas cooktop. Any suggestions how to get the center to firm up with an electric stove?
So glad you enjoyed them Allyson! My favorite trick for mimicking the results you get with a gas stove is, after pan-frying for that golden crust, pop them in the oven (or toaster oven) preheated to 350F to bake for an additional 8 minutes (times vary a smidge) or so to get them extra hot in the center. I do this a lot with fish and it works great with veggie burgers as an added bonus! This should give the brown rice a little extra cook time which should work great here and you can always keep them in the oven a wee bit longer if needed.
Delicious thank you for sharing the recipe they were easier to make than we thought. Donna & Greg
Loved the flavor, but they fell apart when I cooked them. On my next batch, I will try an additional egg and/or mashed potatoes as suggested in a previously documented comment.
Made this for the whole family – it was fantastically tasty.
Everybody approved the recipe.
I just made these and stuck them in the freezer. Any idea how to bake them in the oven? I plan to do that instead of frying them. I was thinking 375 or 400 degrees for 20 mins?? Any advice?
Whoops I meant I stuck them in the fridge, not the freezer!
When I bake the pan-fried-and frozen veggie burgers I do 375 F for about 20-25 minutes – flipping halfway through to crisp each side until crisp on the outside and heated through inside. I haven’t baked the fresh from the fridge uncooked veggie burgers with this particular recipe so I’d just use the above time and temp as your starting point and take it form there. I’ll try to test a bake-only version of these next time we make them! xoxo
Made these today. Delicious! I didn’t have much luck with them sticking together, so we’re going to try to figure it out. For reference, we’re at a high altitude with low humidity.
Hi Stephanie! Glad you found them tasty and I’m totally here to help trouble shoot on getting them to stick. I’m at sea level and like, 100% humidity here in FL most days so I’d say we’re for sure working with a different setting, lol!
A little extra of the wet/sticky ingredients should help your burgers! A third egg or “flax egg” could totally help if the mixture seems too dry. Another trick would be to add some steamed/mashed sweet potato for extra moisture and binding.
We’ll give that a try next time. It’s possible that my fresh eggs might have been small (no clue how to measure them, lol) so an additional egg is probably right. I hadn’t thought of mashed sweet potato, but that sounds great with the flavor profile! Thanks!
nice way to get my required (by my diet) dose of legumes, just never thought it would be in a burger, thank you for this inspired recipe!
I am blown away by how good these are! Just perfect!
Yay! Thank you Suzy!!!
My husband is now vegetarian and I have been looking for a good burger. Thank you.
Happy to help Sandi!